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“After Flaubert”, indebted to the striking light effects and rich impastos of Moreau’s work of the 1870s and Gustave Flaubert’s novel La Tentation de Saint Antoine (1874), marked Khnopff’s lifelong fascination with literature. It explores evocative expression, which, along with his association with the Jeune Belgique literary movement, put Khnopff in the Symbolist camp.

Beneath the main figures, a head in profile, and a male nude are visible.

The statue is signed: G.B. Amendola.

Thomas Rowlandson was an accomplished draftsman who turned to comic illustration after he had dissipated a fortune. He was an easy-going personality. His good humour is evident throughout his work, which shows more delight in the ebullience of a generously rounded line than in character assassination.

The sitter in this painting has been identified as a nephew of Jos� Duaso y Latre, the clergyman in whose house Goya took shelter in 1823 at the end of the liberal interlude. It has been suggested that the date in the inscription has been altered and that the portrait was painted not later than 1820, the last year in which Satu� held office as Alcalde de Corte (a City Councillor of Madrid). From the costume, the informal pose and the style of painting it could have been painted either in 1820 or 1823.

In this painting Boucher presents the mythological family where mother Venus and father Mercury are captured in a moment of parental responsibility. As Messenger of the Arts, Mercury seems to be instructing his offspring in lessons of love, catching Venus’s eye in a moment of romantic encounter. The love goddess is shown in a typically Boucheresque “bottoms-up” pose.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 4 minutes):

Francesco Gasparini: The Meddlesome Cupid, aria

The picture shows the titlepage to Messahalah, De scientia motus orbis, printed by Johann Weissenburger in Nuremberg in 1504. The cut is also attributed to Weichtlin, Peter Vischer the Elder and Kulmbach.

Heda repeated this composition several times with some variations.

This miniature is an illustration to a poem by Jean de Meung in the manuscript Complainte de la Nature à l’alchimiste errant by Pierre Sala. According to the dedication to Francis I, the poem has been translated from Latin from an ancient manuscript found in an old castle of Dauphine. The miniature was taken c. 1850 from the manuscript MS 3220 now in the Biblioth�que Sainte-Genevi�ve in Paris and it belongs to the collection of the Mus�e Marmottan Monet, Paris. The manuscript contains 44 sheets, Perr�al’s miniature was between the current folios 5 and 6.

This is Plate 35 of the illustrated poem Jerusalem.

In this early page of Jerusalem, the sleeping Albion is visited by Christ, who awakens his dormant desire for salvation. Though Albion is not yet conscious of Christ’s sacrifice, its promise is foreshadowed by the new body that begins to emerge from his breast.

The picture shows the left side of the huge painting.

The theme for Ghiberti’s north doors of the Baptistery is the life of Christ in 20 scenes with the 8 lower panels containing the Evangelists and Fathers of the Church. As these doors were kept shut, except on feast days, the scenes read from the bottom accross both wings.

View the arrangement of the panels on the north doors of the Baptistery.

The picture shows St Matthew, one of the four Evangelists.

The Confraternity of the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista in Venice called upon the most respected Venetian painters of the period, including Pietro Perugino, Vittore Carpaccio, Gentile Bellini, Giovanni Mansueti, Lazzaro Bastiani and Benedetto Diana to paint nine canvases for the Great Hall of their headquarters showing the Miracles of the Holy Cross, the story of the miracles performed by the fragment of wood from the Cross on which Jesus was crucified. This fragment had been donated to the brotherhood in 1369 by Philip de Mezi�res, Chancellor of the Kingdom of Cyprus and Jerusalem, and had soon become an object of great veneration and the symbol of the Scuola, one of the most important and wealthy Venetian confraternities.

The canvas painted by Perugino has been lost, but the eight surviving paintings executed between 1496 and 1501, contain depictions of some of the most famous parts of Venice. Since the imposing series of pictures (known as ‘teleri’) are all in the Accademia now it is easy to compare them.

This canvas deals with a miraculous event which took place in 1474 during the funeral of a member of the Confraternity who had not believed firmly in the relic of the Holy Cross during his life. The reliquary containing the sacred fragment was taken to the funeral in the church of S. Lio but in the square outside the church it became so heavy that it could not be carried over the threshold. Another cross had therefore to be used while the one containing the Holy relic was entrusted to the care of the parish priest of S. Lio. The presentation of Campo S. Lio is rather static and analytical, the figural rhythms monotonous and the colouring somewhat lacking in richness and interest, but the picture is nevertheless valuable for the evidence it offers of the architecture and costumes of the time.

Pope Clement XII commissioned new buildings like the Palazzo della Consulta, directly opposite Palazzo Quirinale and destined to serve one of the many commissions of the cardinals.

In the 1480s Civitali and his workshop worked on many projects, the most important of which were the altar tomb of St Regulus and the chapel of the Volto Santo. The St Regulus monument is based on the tomb of Anti-pope John XXIII (c. 1425; Baptistery, Florence) by Donatello and Michelozzo; it includes some of Civitali’s most ambitious carving, for example three life-size marble figures of saints and a delicately carved frieze that recalls the relief styles of Desiderio da Settignano and Jacopo della Quercia.

The enamelled terracotta medallions by Andrea della Robbia featuring infants wrapped in swaddling clothes are a reference to the “Innocents” killed by the order of Herod.

The picture shows the left part of the scene depicting The Original Sin.